Fearless Fourteen - Janet Evanovich [34]
“I’m looking for Zook,” he said.
I switched the porch light on and stared out at him. “Mooner?”
He squinted back at me. “Stephanie Plum?” He turned his attention to Morelli. “And the dude! Whoa, this is too heavy. What’s going on? You aren’t Zook, are you?”
I’d gone to high school with Walter MoonMan Dunphy. MoonMan was the class stoner and voted most likely to get adopted by a little old lady. He drifted in and out of people’s lives, happy to get the occasional bowl of ice cream or cat kibble. He used to live with two other losers on Grant Street, but last I heard he’d moved back home with his mother.
“I’m Zook,” Mario said from the couch.
Mooner looked in at him. “The little dude is Zook. I can dig it. It’s always a little dude.”
“Who are you?” Zook asked.
“I’m Moondog.”
“No way!”
“Way, man,” Mooner said. “I hacked this address. I wanted to see what you looked like. Man, you’re harsh. I was having a good run, and you rained on my parade. You and Scorch. I’m, like, all bummed now.”
“It’s not like we finished you off,” Zook said.
“Dude, it was only a matter of time. And Scorch is an animal. Scorch comes on, and I can smell sulfur.”
“So, you’re the griefer,” Morelli said. “How’d that happen?”
Mooner shrugged. “Destiny, dude.”
“What are you going to do now?” Zook asked Mooner. “You still have a powerful PC.”
“Yeah, but not as powerful as yours. You could go all the way. You could be the Mega Mage of wizards. You could rule Minionfire.”
“Do you really think so?”
“Yeah, but you’d have to make a deal with the wood elves.”
“I don’t like the wood elves.”
“They’re okay. They’re misunderstood.”
“Maybe we could form an alliance, and then you could deal with the wood elves,” Zook said.
“An alliance would be cool,” Mooner said. “We’d need an awesome name . . . like the Legion of Q.”
“What’s Q?” Zook asked.
“It’s everything. It’s the big Q. It’s, like . . . wind, man.”
Mooner dragged his backpack in from the front porch and took his laptop out. “I’ll send a pigeon to the king of the wood elves.”
“You’re going to need a drug test before you run an alliance from my house,” Morelli said to Mooner.
“Hey, I’m clean. Swear to God. You gotta be sharp to be a griefer of my magnitude.”
We let Mooner send a pigeon, and then we kicked him out, and we all went to bed.
I was so relieved to be off the Brenda job that I fell asleep instantly and slept like the dead. I didn’t wake up until Morelli kissed me good-bye the next morning.
“I set the alarm,” he said. “You can’t oversleep today. You have to get Zook off to school.”
I listened to his tread on the stairs and heard the front door open and close. And then two shots from a highpowered rifle shattered the early morning quiet. I flew out of bed and ran to the window. Morelli’s SUV was still at the curb, but I didn’t see Morelli. I grabbed some clothes off the floor, rammed myself into them, and ran to the stairs. I was halfway down the stairs when I realized Morelli was back in the house, in the foyer, talking on his cell phone.
“What the heck was that?” I asked him. “Are you okay?”
Morelli slid his phone into his pocket. “Yeah, I’m okay. That was crazy Dom. I saw him. He stepped right out where I could see him and opened fire on me! I don’t know if he’s a lousy shot or if he just meant to scare me. Anyway, he fired two rounds and took off. I called it in to dispatch. If he stays in that same car, there’s a good chance someone will pick him up.”
I looked up the stairs. No sign of Zook.
“I guess the Legion of Q isn’t bothered by gunfire,” Morelli said. “He probably sleeps wearing earbuds hooked to his computer so he can listen for the wood elves.”
I DROPPED Zook off at school and went home to my apartment. I gave Rex fresh water, a bowl of hamster crunchies, and a potato chip. He rushed out of his soup can, twitched his whiskers at me, stuffed the potato chip into his cheek pouch, and scurried back into his soup can. It’s easy to have a decent relationship with